Wednesday, 18 May 2011

App-solute rubbish

Good Lord, did you see the second episode of The Apprentice last week, the one where the contestants (Britain’s entreprenurial elite, or something) had to build a mobile app? After consulting with those in the know and doing ‘extensive’ market research (consisting of wandering up to random people in the street and annoying them), they came up with an app that made a limited number of annoying noises and another that spat out phrases like ‘if you can’t drive it, park it’ in cockney, scouse etc dialect.

The Apprentice has long since given up any pretence towards being a serious business show, having strayed into freak show territory during series two, but even by its low standards the apps were awful. On the plus side, it was good to see an appearance by the folks at Grapple, who have created apps for the likes of BT, Xbox and T-Mobile. Pity the contestants paid no attention to the sound advice they were given.

4 comments:

I strongly agree with this. Also worth mentioning, is that for every task of every episode; the teams were given a 'float' (not their own money) with which to purhcase things with. Heck, if someone game me money to buy things with, business would be easy, LOL!

The truth is that in the real world, absolutely nobody would be featuring their 'apps', least of all Wired. "Is that a picture of an elephant and the sound of a dog?" Ha!

I know it's all just a bit of fun, but it would be nice to see just a hint of reality in the challenges. One of the guys said about the orange juice sales, "That is a viable business!" Sure, if you have daily use of a catering kitchen, a kiosk, and a prime pitch on the forecourt of Euston all for free, let alone 7 other delusional suits willing to squeeze oranges for the fun of it.

Similarly I'm sure we could all manage a few downloads given an entire development team happy to work to a 48 hour turnaround and free pitches to Wired and the Earls Court event. I guess it was never intended to hold up to close scrutiny, but you wait and see, some poor saps will be gambling away their mortgages on the basis of what they see here.

I don't know why anyone would want to be humiliated repeatedly by sour old Sugar, leave alone enter into partnership with him. 'Lord Sugar' is obviously playing to the camera, but even so I'd fire him for being so rude and disrespectful to others.

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Welcome to my blog on all things financial technology-related. I'm Editor of FSTech - formerly FST - Financial Sector Technology, one of the leading business titles for IT decision makers in the UK and European financial services sector. The title has an ABC certified circulation of 11,500 IT decision makers from across the continent, within banks, building societies, insurers, trading houses, exchanges and other financial institutions.